I may be in the minority as a fly sparger, but I have a question. In the editor, there is a box for Sparge Rate. What is this used for?

Also, the Sparge Rate and Sparge Volume boxes both have 70.0F to the right of them. Why does it say 70? This was set as my source water temp. Are these related? The next box down is the Sparge Temp, and that is set to 168F. Don't know what the reference to 70F is about.

I see in the schedule how changing the Sparge Rate changes the Infuse/Decoct and Available amounts, but doesn't change the collected amount. How are all these numbers related?

ibrubeer wrote:I may be in the minority as a fly sparger, but I have a question. In the editor, there is a box for Sparge Rate. What is this used for?

That indicates the volume of water per unit mass used during the sparge. For example, a typical fly sparge may use 0.5 gal per 1.0 lb of grain.

ibrubeer wrote:Also, the Sparge Rate and Sparge Volume boxes both have 70.0F to the right of them. Why does it say 70? This was set as my source water temp. Are these related? The next box down is the Sparge Temp, and that is set to 168F. Don't know what the reference to 70F is about.

Liquid water expands with increased temperature. The temperature next to the volume box is the reference temperature at which the volume of water is measured.

ibrubeer wrote:I see in the schedule how changing the Sparge Rate changes the Infuse/Decoct and Available amounts, but doesn't change the collected amount. How are all these numbers related?

The collected amount is the the volume of runoff that you collect during the sparge. You may set this amount manually, set the available runoff to 0 or whatever you want to leave behind, or click the checkbox next to the collected box to lock it to the kettle volume of the recipe.

ibrubeer wrote:I see in the schedule how changing the Sparge Rate changes the Infuse/Decoct and Available amounts, but doesn't change the collected amount. How are all these numbers related?

The collected amount is the the volume of runoff that you collect during the sparge. You may set this amount manually, set the available runoff to 0 or whatever you want to leave behind, or click the checkbox next to the collected box to lock it to the kettle volume of the recipe.

Could you please clarify further?

Specifically, at the end of my mash, I have a mash out step. This show an in vessel volume of 7 gallons. and to the left of that collected = 0gal

Next comes the Fly Sparge step with 6.5 gallons water. The amount of available volume in the mash seems to not be reflected in the total collected volume, only the sparge volume. When I try to create a new transfer step in between the mash out and the sparge to reflect the lautering step, things get even more screwy. For New Trasnfer, it allows me to select a vessel. Is this the source or destination of the wort? When I select boil kettle for the vessel, though the display indicated 4.06gal available & 7 gal in vessel, the new transfer dialog populates 6.81 gallons which I assume is the entire mash, not just the wort?

Trickydick wrote:Specifically, at the end of my mash, I have a mash out step. This show an in vessel volume of 7 gallons. and to the left of that collected = 0gal

Next comes the Fly Sparge step with 6.5 gallons water. The amount of available volume in the mash seems to not be reflected in the total collected volume, only the sparge volume. When I try to create a new transfer step in between the mash out and the sparge to reflect the lautering step, things get even more screwy. For New Trasnfer, it allows me to select a vessel. Is this the source or destination of the wort? When I select boil kettle for the vessel, though the display indicated 4.06gal available & 7 gal in vessel, the new transfer dialog populates 6.81 gallons which I assume is the entire mash, not just the wort?

I think I'm missing something....

A transfer step is for moving the entire contents or a portion of the contents to another vessel. It is not a lauter/sparge step. The fly or batch sparge steps perform calculations related to separating the extract from the spent grains. These steps assume that you are collecting runoff during the sparge which is why you have to choose the collection vessel when configuring them. The "Available" field in the fly sparge editor indicates how much runoff is yet available in the vessel. It factors in vessel dead space and grain absorption. Hope this clarifies it a bit.